Kingston (Jamaica), July 2 (IANS) After an eventful day's cricket in the fourth, and what will now certainly be the series-deciding Test, India finished with their noses marginally in front of the West Indies.
Sixteen wickets fell as India, after bowling out West Indies for 103 in their first innings at the Sabina Park Saturday, finished the second day of the five-day match at 128 for 6 in their second innings. Their overall lead is 225.
Rahul Dravid produced his second masterpiece of the match, following his first innings 81, and was unbeaten on 62 (130 balls, 11 fours) at the close. On his efforts Sunday will rest India's hopes for getting their first series win in the West Indies since 1971.
The way the Sabina Park wicket has played in the first two days, it seems to be a big ask for any side to score the highest total of the match in the fourth innings to achieve victory.
But the West Indians have a champion in their midst, Brian Lara, who is not only capable of winning a match with the power of his record-breaking batting skills. But also, as he has shown in this series, of being a forceful inspiration to his team-mates in the West Indian quest of an image-reviving series win.
In the morning, West Indies failed to last one-and-a-half sessions. They were all out in 33.3 overs, 40 minutes after lunch. Harbhajan Singh captured his second five-wicket haul in successive Tests after S. Sreesanth made the initial breakthroughs.
The significance of Rahul Dravid's 81 Friday became even more apparent on the day as the West Indian batsmen chose stroke playing as the weapon with which to counter the duplicitous nature of the wicket. It was not a wise choice.
Lara was their leading exponent. He was at his exhilarating best as he hit six fours in 26, out of 42 added with Darren Ganga after Sreesanth had removed Chris Gayle in the first over of the innings. He pulled and cut Sreesanth as only he can and when Anil Kumble came on for Munaf Patel, drove him in his first over for boundaries either side of the non-striker's wicket.
Sreesanth did bother him a couple that moved and had two good shouts for leg before and then got the master out with a snorter, the last ball of his sixth over. It rose viciously from a good length and as Lara fended awkwardly, the ball went off to his glove to Wasim Jaffer at third slip.
As the West Indian batsmen, apart from Ganga, made no attempt to stay and survive at the wicket, Harbhajan hammered the final nails in the coffin. In just 4.3 overs, he took 5 for 13 to follow up the fifer he took in the West Indian first innings at St Kitts.
If India though they had the match in their pocket after their morning's work, they were sadly mistaken. Once again, Jerome Taylor came steaming in, and caused early damage, removing the openers in the first four overs of the innings.
V.V.S. Laxman and Dravid seemed to have weathered the storm, with a 43-run stand in 18 overs, but then Laxman fell, and the middle-order again collapsed, with only Dravid standing firm.
It would be easy to blame the dismissals on the pitch. The ball does scoot through at times, climbs steeply at other times. But more than a few batsmen, from both sides, perished trying to play strokes to balls temptingly bowled at them.
The key to survival was application and so far only Dravid has shown it.
And he also showed that strokes could be hit: his 11 fours in the second innings are testimony to it. He cut, pulled and drove majestically, and two of the more memorable boundaries he hit were the ones that raised his 9,000th run in Test cricket and his second 50 of the match.
SCOREBOARD
Day 2, Fourth Test, West Indies v India, Sabina Park, Kingston (Jamaica)
India (1st innings): 200
West Indies (1st innings):
Chris Gayle b Sreesanth 0
Darren Ganga lbw Harbhajan 40
Brian Lara c Jaffer b Sreesanth 26
Marlon Samuels st Dhoni b Kumble 2
Shivnarine Chanderpaul c Dhoni b Patel 10
Dwayne Bravo c Yuvraj b Harbhajan 0
Ramnaresh Sarwan c Kaif b Harbhajan 7
Denesh Ramdin c Yuvraj b Harbhajan 10
Jerome Taylor run out 6
Pedro Collins c Sehwag b Harbhajan 0
Corey Collymore not out 0
Extras (1w, 1nb) 2
Total (for 33.3 overs) 103
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-42, 3-53, 4-72, 5-80, 6-81, 7-88, 8-99, 9-103
Bowling:
S. Sreesanth 9-3-34-2
Munaf Patel 12-5-24-1 (1w)
Anil Kumble 8-3-32-1 (1nb)
Harbhajan Singh 4.3-0-13-5
India (2nd innings):
Wasim Jaffer c Samuels b Taylor 1
Virender Sehwag lbw Taylor 4
V.V.S. Laxman c Lara b Collymore 16
Rahul Dravid batting 62
Yuvraj Singh c Lara b Collymore 13
Mohammed Kaif b Collins 6
M.S. Dhoni b Taylor 19
Anil Kumble batting 2
Extras (3lb, 1w, 1nb) 5
Total (for 6 wkts, in 49 overs) 128
Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-6, 3-49, 4-63, 5-76, 6-122,
Bowling:
Pedro Collins 19-7-56-1 (1nb)
Jerome Taylor 10-3-28-3
Corey Collymore 16-5-31-2
Dwayne Bravo 4-1-10-0 (1w)
© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service | 
